Given the circumstances of a difficult economic year during a still ongoing global pandemic, India’s Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s government could have chosen any number of routes while presenting the budget for the 2020-21 financial year.
Modi could have paused the economic reforms in face of the trumped-up protests against the reformist farm laws. Modi government could have legitimately raised taxes to finance its way out of the expenses required to confront a global pandemic.
The path of recklessly printing currency as a way out of a tight fiscal situation could have been another model chosen. New capital expenditure could have been halted given the drain in resources due to a contracting economic year arising out of the lockdowns due to the pandemic.